Tag Archives:

IDF

Mustafa Tamimi’s sister Ola, center, on learning of his injury, Dec. 9 Friday morning, December 9th, my friend and I set out to experience a West Bank protest. It was a first for both of us, seeing as I have Arabic class every Friday, and he lives in Tel Aviv. As protest virgins, we had […]

Mustafa Tamimi, a 28-year-old Palestinian from the village of Nabi Saleh, moments before he was shot by the Israeli army and killed. “Circled in red are the barrel of the gun and the projectile that hit him,” according to the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (Photo: Haim Scwarczenberg) The Israel Defense Forces’ spin doctors are at […]

Mustafa Tamimi, a 28-year-old Palestinian from the village of Nabi Saleh, moments before he was shot by the Israeli army and critically injured. “Circled in red are the barrel of the gun and the projectile that hit him,” according to the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (Photo: Haim Scwarczenberg) Violence rocked the occupied Palestinian territories today, […]

As someone who spends a lot of time performing critical analysis of the press as well as studying propaganda in general, there are occasionally stories which prick my interest. A couple of days ago, a story appeared on the IDF Spokesperson’s Website which did just that. The story essentially reports on an interview with one “Mathilde […]

The Israeli army, the New York Times and Ynet all said or suggested yesterday that the Israeli army was teargassing demonstrators, including Jawaher Abu Rahmah, 36, who was killed, because of demonstrator violence; and the outlets were all quickly discredited by people on the scene on twitter–and in this wrapup by Alex Kane. What follows […]

Avigdor Lieberman’s home settlement of Nokdim. Jeb al Theeb, a small West Bank village south of Bethlehem, is under constant threat by the illegal Israeli settlements surrounding it. The small house we called home for a month had a view of the so-called Lieberman Road, which connects Jerusalem with the settlement of Nokdim, where Israeli […]

Roger Cohen praises Fayyad, and pushes the Obama-Clinton efforts. The settlement deal with Netanyahu is “positive but a detail.” (I’m not sure what he means by that.) His take on the Palestinian change of attitude reminds me a little of patronizing comments on lamentable Jewish attitudes of yesteryear. Of course then we got the IDF! […]

On Wednesday, the New York Times did a piece quoting Netanyahu’s speech before the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations in New Orleans and didn’t mention that young Jewish activists repeatedly heckled the PM, even as the disruption was all that anyone was talking about. That night I went to an aliyah event at NYU […]

My nephew will be called up some time in the next few weeks to begin his three-year stint in the Israeli army. He is not my first nephew to reach draft age. My brother’s four oldest sons have all passed that age, but they are part of the ultra Orthodox community and do not consider […]

A number of friends have pointed out a slightly-unsettling-in-a-way-you-can’t-put-your-finger-on-it aspect of the 60 Minutes piece last Sunday night on occupied East Jerusalem: the affable spokesman for the religious occupiers, with an American accent, is one Doron Spielman. And Doron Spielman is also featured in the documentary Budrus, as a spokesman for the Israeli government as […]

Is Israel a good counter-terrorism role model for the US? This question has been on my mind ever since the morning of September 12, 2001, when professors in two consecutive lecture classes told us first-year law students that we needn’t worry, that they had been talking to friends in Israel, friends who knew just what […]

When 91 year old Ibrahim Abu Sayed left his home near Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, yesterday morning, in order to check on his land and his animals which graze next to the remains of his former home, he took with him his 17-year-old grandson Hossam and the young boy’s friend and neighbour, 16-year-old Ismail […]

My post about nonviolence vs. violence and the Gaza Flotilla unleashed a heated debate. Max Ajl, David Bromwich, Robin Yassin-Kassab, Ken O’Keefe elsewhere, Max Ajl again, and Norman Finkelstein outside this forum have spilled many impassioned electrons on this topic, not to mention the dozens of thoughtful comments below each post. Good. This is a debate we need […]